


Somebody I used to Know

by Charlie9646



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: AU, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/F, F/M, Fluff, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Humor, Post War, Reuniting, Single Dad Draco, Tropes fest, Undercover, bisexual hermione, match making, rom com, unspeakable hermione
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-07
Updated: 2020-12-07
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:27:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,041
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27694810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Charlie9646/pseuds/Charlie9646
Summary: Hermione didn’t know why she was even here. Why did Ginny always suggested things like this? But it was worth a shot, if the worst happened she could simply forget about and move on. She had a fairly happy life, but her love life left a lot to be desired.If Pansy could find someone for Harry why couldn’t she do the same for her?
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Draco Malfoy, past Astoria Greengrass/Draco Malfoy - Relationship, past Hermione Granger/Pansy Parkinson - Relationship
Comments: 6
Kudos: 33
Collections: DFW Tropes Fest: Double Trouble





	Somebody I used to Know

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you NuclearNik for Betaing this and reminding me that it was actually good. NaNo while helping me get more words down has been a rather long month.

Hermione didn’t know why she was going to this whatever it was. Part of her wanted to blame Ginny who treated her like the Barbies that neither of them had while they were growing up, but Hermione might have had some part to play in this, couldn't she? She was the one who ended up complaining to her friend about how she seemed to be wasting her time when it came to men. She'd long since given up on dating and practically given up on men in general. So, Ginny had decided she wasn’t going to be the one to use the invitation to this club of sorts and that Hermione _should_. It was a strange club that had a sort of dating service, as it seemed to have success in connecting people who might not have normally met. Her mind went to Harry and Theo who had met here; the two men were going to be married this summer, so in a way, didn’t that speak for itself?

Harry, the man with a far more rabid “fan base” of fame-chasing morons than she could have in a lifetime, had found love, and he was gay to boot! Surely if this place could help him she would be easy... or at least she hoped. However, if it didn’t work out then she could throw it under the “Well, that was a weird situation but not something I want to repeat,” column in her mental scrapbook. It could be another silly memory only to be brought up when she was really drunk and everything just seemed rather funny. But Hermione was getting ahead of herself now, wasn’t she?  
  


Pansy Parkinson was the creator of this... place. Priding herself on being the matchmaker for the working professional witch or wizard without the time to date. At least, that's what the card said. Because of the nature of her clients she had spells on them once they entered the building to hide their identities. 

The cold wind hit Hermione's face as she caught sight of the address on the rather plain, nondescript building. 

_Finally,_ Hermione thought. _Merlin, why did this place have to be so hard to find? How have I gotten here? Not in this building, as troublesome it was to find, but actually in this situation where I would need to use a service like this?_

Long ago Hermione had assumed her life had been laid out before her. She was going to go back to Hogwarts for her eighth year, join the Ministry, marry Ron, and then in a few years she would have a child with him or maybe even two. It wasn’t strange to plan that out; her own parents, after all, had been secondary school sweethearts. They had stayed together through university and then dentistry school. Her parents were happy, and Hermione had assumed her own relationship would be like that, until it wasn’t. 

Ronald Weasley, it seemed, could not wrap his head around the idea that she wasn’t going to be _just like his mum_. She wanted to roll her eyes at the very thought of that. Hermione loved Molly Weasley and she knew stay-at-home mums could be happy, but it wasn’t what she wanted out of her life, not one bit. She had far too much else to do for that to be the case. It ended on mutual terms, if by mutual terms you meant the two of them sending howlers at each other back and forth throughout the work day. Looking back it hadn’t been either of their finest moments, but everyone does things they regret at nineteen, don’t they? 

They had gotten over that now; it had been over ten years ago, after all, and time could heal nearly all wounds, couldn’t it? Ron was now happily married to Lavender, who seemed to put him in his place, and he loved how she saw the world and herself. They were happy and that’s all that mattered in the end. 

Hermione, on the other hand, had no luck with love. She had been with Pansy for a short time, but that hadn’t worked out. It seemed the woman preferred matching people than actually being with someone herself. Then there was the two year long distance relationship she'd had with Remus after the man had moved to France for their better Werewolf laws. But they both decided that they were better off as friends. There was the Muggle man she had met at a bar, one she could barely remember the name of. There was Viktor Krum who had simply wanted to be friends with benefits. 

But when Molly had asked her at Sunday dinner if she was that newfangled word people were throwing around— _asexual_ or was it _aromantic?_ Hermione wanted to scream. Not finding the right person didn’t mean that she wasn’t interested in everything that others were. There was anything _wrong_ with being aromantic or asexual, of course, it was just that Hermione Jean Granger was not either of those things.

Picking up a token per what the sign said, Hermione shoved it into her cardigan pocket. The room was crowded with witches and wizards. They were laughing and holding glasses of wine in their hands. Pansy walked up to her, the woman’s high-heeled boots clicking loudly against the hardwood floor. Her friend threw her arms around her and whispered in her ear, “Your fake name for this is Anna, and I have someone I want you to meet.”

Hermione opened and closed her mouth but did not say anything. 

“Merlin, you're not a cod, quit doing that.” 

She sighed and fought the urge to roll her eyes, but still shut her mouth allowing her friend to lead. 

Pansy took her over to a man with dark brown hair and grey eyes. He was rather plain looking, though that didn’t mean much, did it? It wasn’t who he actually was, but something about him... Something about him reminded her of someone that she used to know. It was something about the way the man stood, how he carried himself. The broadness of his shoulders and his trim waist. 

_Merlin,_ she thought. _Whoever he is, he’s handsome._

“Hello,” he said, puffing on the cigarette that was hanging between his lips. “I am…”

“He’s Jamie, that’s his name,” Pansy said, her brown eyes narrowing and nose wrinkling. “Both of you remember the rules, keep the coins on you, no real names, and keep the topics light and not too personal. Understood?”

“Yes,” they both said. 

“This is rather strange,” the man muttered, setting his cigarette aside in an ashtray on the bar near him. “I worry anything that I might say would give me away, and your answers might give you away.”

“We could stick to simple things,” Hermione responded, tucking a curl behind her ear. “Like your favourite colour.”

“Brown,” he said softly, as he looked over her. “My favourite colour is brown. Yours?”

“Green,” she said without thinking, her face heating up and surely turning her cheeks and shoulders a bright shade of red. “Or at least I think so.”

“Something says to me that you are someone who does not _think so_ about anything. Something says that you are either someone who knows or doesn't. That you hold knowledge tightly and pride yourself on knowing or not knowing.”  
  


Hermione tugged at her cardigan’s sleeve, shifting back and forth with nervous energy under this man’s gaze. 

_Who was he?_ she thought once more. Had she gone to school with him? What house had he been in? Did he remember her? Is that why he was teasing her like a cat and she was a mouse? Two could play at this game, considering she had some of her own guesses who this might be, but she could not be sure of exactly who he was for sure. 

She teased, “Are you sure of that? It is possible that you might be putting your own feelings and outlook on me? What do you do for work? If you cannot tell me what it actually is then at least you can tell me in general terms, can’t you?” 

“I think I can, but surely we don’t want to upset Pansy now, do we?” He reached out, brushing his fingers down her arm, then just as quickly dropping them. Whispering, he added, “I work for Gringotts. I travel far more than I wish, but I do enjoy it for the most part. It means that I am regularly away from my son more than I would like. What do you do?”

“I work for the Ministry,” Hermione said, without really thinking about whether or not she was giving herself away. “Mostly in the Unspeakable Department, though sometimes I feel like I am doing everything and anything beyond that. Like I'm the human version of a catch all for the ministry. Is your son at Hogwarts now or with his mother?”

“He just turned three, so Hogwarts is thankfully a long way off,” Jamie said. Hermione was starting to put the pieces together who he might actually be. “His mother passed away right after he was born.”  
  
“I'm sorry... I'm sure you miss her.”  
  


Looking down at her he said, “I do miss her, but Astoria would want me and Scorpius to try our very best to move on.”

Covering his hands with his face, her mystery man—who she was certain now was Draco Malfoy—muttered into them, “Merlin, I'm sorry. I shouldn’t have said that... Pansy is going to want to put her bloody foot up my arse. But I deserve that, don’t I? I... If you don’t want to speak to me anymore, I understand. I think you might be someone who has every bloody right to hate me and honestly? I wouldn’t blame you after all the crap I did growing up.” 

She stepped closer to him, her left hand reaching out, grabbing onto that black button-down shirt he was wearing. Clutching it, Hermione rocked up onto her toes. “I will give you three guesses to figure out my name... What is it?”

Toying with him was fun, and the perplexed look on his face made her want to smile. Draco was biting onto his lip as if he was trying to figure out who she was, but the look in his eyes said he knew _exactly_ who she was. 

“Hermione,” he said, shutting his eyes. “Hermione. Hermione.” 

“Yes,” she whispered, her lips brushing against his cheek. “Now, do you want to set that coin aside and I will do the same, so we can actually see each other, who we really are?”

“So, Granger, you are asking if I want to break the rules one more time?” Draco asked. “Because I always thought you were the one following them.”  
  


“Maybe things have changed,” Hermione mumumured. “Maybe _I_ _have_ changed, just like you have. Though it's not really breaking the rules since we know who we are, don’t we?” 

Sighing, he pulled the gold coin out of his pocket, holding it in his palmhand. “Fine, let’s do it together then, shall we?”

Hermione held her own out and together, they sat them on the bar next to them. The face of the man before her twisted, blending and becoming someone who vaguely reminded her of the boy she used to know. There were lines in his face that weren’t there years ago, but his smile _actually_ reached his eyes. Life had been hard to both of them but maybe it was starting to look up. 

Draco leaned down, and Hermione found herself reaching up, her hands going to his shoulders. Growing up she had never been one for fairytales or romantic comedies; she never had an interest in the trashy novels that Ginny loved, but even she knew what would happen in this moment. It was the time to call the curtains, time for the handsome man to kiss the pretty girl and maybe, just maybe, they would live happily after. This wasn’t the movies, and yet when his lips crashed against hers her heart leaped. 

Maybe there was such a thing called Happily Ever After with someone who she used to know. 

  
  



End file.
